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4 Jewish takeaways from Trump’s big speech to Congress

WASHINGTON (JTA) – President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint meeting of Congress is getting rave reviews for the subdued, “presidential” style of his delivery, and positive feedback from the Jewish community for opening remarks denouncing anti-Semitic acts as examples of “hate and evil.”

But there ensues the inevitable Trumpian conundrum: What did he actually mean?

Here are four takeaways from the speech and what it says about bias and the Jews:

1. What did he condemn exactly?

From the very first paragraph:

Birth control coverage is in serious danger

The Trump administration may weaken or eliminate the provision for full coverage of contraception in the Affordable Care Act, experts say, and it may not require any action from Republican allies in Congress.

The provision that allows women to receive full coverage for birth control — including insertion and removal of an IUD — could be eliminated or at least weakened through regulations, guidance, or law. Reproductive rights advocates are also waiting to see whether the Trump administration will continue to defend the mandate in the courts on Tuesday.

Anne Frank Center slams Trump: ‘Do not make us Jews settle for crumbs of condescension’

President Trump spoke out Tuesday against anti-Semitic threats, but his words were not enough for the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, whose executive director called the president’s acknowledgment of anti-Semitism a “Band-Aid on the cancer of Antisemitism that has infected his own Administration.”

David Friedman's Kapos Slur Denounced by Rabbis & Survivors

Letters to the Senate from hundreds of rabbis, and dozens of Holocaust survivors and scholars say the abuse of the term “kapo” by President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel should be a factor in considering his confirmation.

An array of liberal Jewish groups organized three separate letters this week to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: One from rabbis and cantors, one from Holocaust survivors, and one from Holocaust scholars. The letters will be delivered to senators on the committee before Friedman’s confirmation hearing commences on Thursday.

EDITORIAL: Trump and Israel: casual, careless and dangerous

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of Donald Trump’s press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday was not, as it would have been with any other US president, his abandoned commitment to a two-state solution, but the casualness and carelessness with which he dropped it: his jocular tone, fumbling words and evident ignorance of the issue.

The big lesson of Trump's first 2 weeks: resistance works

It’s easy to miss amid Donald Trump’s frenetic pace of activity and nonstop media coverage, but the most important story in American politics right now isn’t about what Trump is doing: It’s that the opposition is working.

The millions of people who marched in Washington and other cities around the world on inauguration weekend and then demonstrated again at airports the following weekend are making a concrete difference in the world. So are the tens of thousands who’ve called members of Congress or showed up in person at their events.

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